Election coverage is often assumed to be different to everyday political coverage. We argue that this depends on political institutions. In majoritarian countries, where elections choose governments, election coverage should decisively move towards political competition and away from policy. In consensual countries, where coalitions are based on policy negotiations, there should be a less pronounced shift towards political competition and away from policy. To test this argument, we use an automatic coding system to study 0.9 billion words in Die Welt for 12 years and in the Financial Times for 30 years. The results support our institutional hypothesis.
Introduction : the ambiguity of multi-level governance / G. P. E. Walzenbach -- European competition policy : governance as graduated co-ordination / G. P. E. Walzenbach -- Polycentric governance meets the new economy : the United States, the European Union, and transnational regulation / Thomas C. Lawton, Steven McGuire, and G. P. E. Walzenbach -- Dematerializing economies and local growth : a case for ad hoc governance / Tony Gore and Don J. Webber -- European employment policy : governance as regulation / Graham Taylor -- Social security policy : European goals and institutional barriers / Rosa Mulé -- Multiple agoras : environmental policies between globalization and European transformation / Jörg Dürrschmidt -- Immigration and asylum policy in Europe : a challenge to the model of multi-level governance / Oliver Schmidtke -- A capability-implementation gap in the making? : multi-level governance and European crisis management / Liisa Laakso -- Interparliamentary co-operation in the European Union : towards multi-level governance / Donatella M. Viola -- Conclusion : An interdisciplinary approach to European governance? / G. P. E. Walzenbach
The household electricity markets in Finland were opened to the competition on the 1st of November 1998. At the same time, the electricity transmission and distribution networks were regulated by special legislation (Act on Electricity Markets) and by special regulator (Electricity Market Authority). The regulation was extended to limit the unreasonable pricing and to separate financially the different business units (production, distribution and sales). However, the district heating industry does not have industry specific regulation. It is regulated through general Competition Laws. The policy induced competition in the electricity industry is expected to affect the district heating industry since both industries compete in the household heating goods markets. In addition, the district heating industry in Finland has had a regional monopoly within its distribution network. The threat of extended regulation is evident in the industry, since most of the network industries are regulated in order to facilitate access to the network and to speed up the development of competition in the market. The hypothesis of regulatory threat is studied through pricing behaviour of firms by using panel data models. The data consists of 76 district heating companies in Finland in years 1996 - 2002. The results indicate that the district heat markets are non-competitive and some evidence which supports regulat01y threat hypothesis can also be found. The electricity market reform caused a slight decrease in district heating price. The results indicate also that the large and market dominant firms have been more responsive to the policy reform than small firms.
Purpose Under the traditional franchise value paradigm, competition in banking markets is considered to be risk enhancing because of its tendency to raise interest rates on deposits. Taking a contrarian view, Boyd and De Nicolo (2005) have argued that competition in the loan market can lead to lower interest rates and hence reduce bank risk-taking. Following these contradictory theoretical results, the empirical evidence on the relationship between risk and competition in banking has also been mixed. This paper analyses the competition–stability relationship for the Indian banking sector for the period 1999-2000 to 2012-2013.
Design/methodology/approach Banking competition is measured using structural measures of concentration, namely, five-bank concentration ratios and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index as well as a non-structural measure of competition – the Panzar-Rosse H-Statistic. Panel regression methods are used to estimate the relationships.
Findings Our results show that while concentration leads to lower levels of default, market and asset risks, it exacerbates the levels of capital and liquidity risks.
Practical implications These results have interesting implications for banking sector policy in emerging economies. For instance, any strategy on entry of new banks has to be carefully coordinated with supervisory efforts and macro-prudential policy to derive the benefits of greater competition in the banking industry.
Originality/value This is the first paper that analyses the competition – stability relationship using a large number of alternative measures for the banking sector, an emerging economy.
This article estimates policy positions of mainstream parties and radical right parties in seven countries in Western Europe over the past two decades. The assumption that mainstream parties have moved rightwards under pressure from the electoral success of radical right parties is assessed in close-up. A fine-grained analysis has been used to measure party distances in this specific policy field. Moreover, the new dataset is sufficiently differentiated to enable the identification of specific programmatic strategies followed by mainstream parties. The article concludes that the impact of radical right parties on mainstream policy agendas tends to be overestimated. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]
Der Energiesektor zeichnet sich durch den Bedarf an kapitalintensiven Investitionen in Infrastruktur aus - vor allem in der Stromerzeugung und der Gasgewinnung, aber auch in der Energieübertragung und -verteilung. Sowohl die Marktstrukturen als auch der Grad an Wettbewerb und Regulierung sind Schlüsselfaktoren bei der Bestimmung der Investitionsanreize für Unternehmen. Dennoch sind die empirischen Erkenntnisse zum Zusammenhang zwischen diesen Faktoren und privaten Investitionen noch immer recht bescheiden, insbesondere in den Energiesektoren. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht empirisch, ob die Wettbewerbspolitik und regulatorische Eingriffe in die europäischen Märkte für Gas und Strom die Investitionsanreize für Unternehmen beeinflussen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Durchsetzung der EU-Fusionskontrolle signifikant mit höheren Investitionen in weniger regulierten Märkten zusammenhängt. ; Energy sectors - primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution - require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms' incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors andprivate investment is still quite scarce, especially in the energy sectors. This study empirically examines whether competition policy enforcement and regulatory intervention in European gas and electricity markets affects firms' incentive to invest. The findings show that EU merger policy enforcement is significantly related to a higher investment in low-regulated markets.
